Education

The purpose of an education is to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to be a productive and self-sufficient member of society, and to produce young men and women of virtue and character.

Parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.  But too often misguided policies have taken away those rights. Among the most destructive have been unnecessary school closures, and abandoning proven, evidence-based education practices.

I raised my kids here.  My wife and I were educated K-12 in public schools, and we chose the same for our kids.  But I don’t recognize much of what is coming out of our schools systems today.  And if I was sending my kids to school now, I don’t know if I would choose a public education.

We need to demand a quality education for our kids.  We need to get engaged with our schools and make our voices heard.  Parents around the country are getting involved, coming to school board meetings, recalling out of control school boards, and filling school board positions; it has been inspiring to see.

Having a choice of schooling has always led to a higher quality of education – it is a basic right for all children no matter what income bracket they are in. We need to keep our schools open and focus our curriculum on the skills our kids need to be successful citizens.

That’s why I am a chief sponsor on the Better Public Education Act - every child has the right to learn in the way that suits their unique needs and will allow them to succeed. Please join the movement. Read the Initiative Petition, IP-30, here.

Street Homelessness

Look around Portland and Salem. Talk to the people on the streets. Talk to recovered addicts. Talk to parents of the severely mentally ill. And review the evidence. Our street homelessness issue is complex. But it is not primarily a housing problem. It is an alcohol and drug abuse problem. And until we accept that, and implement evidence-based systems for addiction treatment and recovery, we won't see change.

"Housing first" and "harm reduction” for this population isn't compassion. It is enablement and neglect.

When people passed Ballot Measure 110 they voted for Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery - that was the title of the bill! But what we are getting is nothing of the sort. The agency running the implementation of 110 is focused on destigmatizing drug use, providing clean foil and needles, short-term detox, and educating on the ‘safe’ way to use drugs. It is not even a goal to get people clean, they view it as too hard.

We must implement policies that encourage, and in some cases compel, drug treatment and recovery. The evidence shows that this works. That means we must recriminalize hard drugs and require treatment. We must make it easier for the severely mentally ill to get the help they so desperately need. And, we must recognize the social impact our current policies have on the rest of the community. That is true compassion.

Forest Management

Policies have consequences. It is as simple as that. Our district has been rocked by out-of-control wildfires, a result of ridiculous and unworkable forest policy. Those ideas may sound good to some in New York City or Washington DC, but they often don’t work in real life, and our families have experienced these failures first-hand.  We lost hundreds of homes and several lives here in the Santiam Canyon because of misguided policies and disastrous decisions by our leadership.

I saw the devastation left by the raging forest fires, and I helped lead the community’s response as we came together to help one another. And while I’m proud of all our efforts, I never want to go through it again.   We need to restore balance in our forest management policies, and reflect the interests of the people that live, work, and recreate in these forests.

I come from a family that worked in the woods.  Almost all of the family I knew growing up were loggers and sawmillers, or worked in the woods in other ways.  I had one grandfather that owned a sawmill and ran logging contracts, and another grandfather that was the district forest ranger.  While they didn’t always see eye-to-eye, I always saw them come together, sometimes over the Christmas dinner table, and discuss the issues.  I believe that they both shared a common belief – that we are stewards of this land; it is our responsibility to actively manage our forests to our benefit and the benefit of future generations.

I am opposed to the Habitat Conservation Plan and the Private Forest Accord; both policies have locked up thousands of acres of Oregon forest, preventing sustainable timber harvesting and wildfire fuel reduction.

Active forest management doesn’t mean you let it grow wild. It doesn’t mean you ‘let it burn'. It doesn’t mean you let fuel continue to accumulate. It means that you manage the forest, that you recognize it is a renewable resource providing income and jobs to those that live here, and recreational opportunities for those that visit. When it comes to our forests I am a Conservationist, not a Preservationist.

Standing Up for Small Businesses

Small businesses are the life blood of our economy. They provide many of the jobs in our district and our nation. But too often government gets in the way of the little guy.

I built a business from the ground up with my wife and my partners.  I know what it means to put everything you own on the line in the hopes of building something greater than the sum of its parts.  I know what it means to make a payroll; sometimes as a small business owner you pay everyone else first and get whatever is left over.  I know the challenges of finding, hiring, and retaining great employees, and the never-ending race to keep your customers happy and stay ahead of the competition.  It can be tough, but I love it.  It is part of the American Dream.  Unfortunately, too many in the government have never signed both sides of a paycheck and only have experience spending taxpayer dollars.

When COVID-19 hit, the government leveled policies that hurt our neighborhood stores and restaurants while helping the big chain stores. They forced devastating lockdowns that did nothing to protect our health. I’m going to fight onerous regulations and taxes that stymie growth and hamstring small business owners.

Agriculture

Farmers and ranchers are the true conservationists, but they are being threatened from every angle. Our ag producers are in a world of hurt right now, and the last thing we need to do is make it harder for them.

When it comes to farming and ranching policies, our state is full of hypocrisy.  The Oregon legislature creates feel-good policies that make it harder to farm and ranch in Oregon, driving production and jobs out of the state and even out of the country.  They create these policies in the name of social justice and environmental consciousness.  But instead of creating better jobs and a cleaner global environment, it drives up the cost of doing business in Oregon, and pushes production to countries that do not share our worker or environmental standards.

It is also making family farms unsustainable. This leads to consolidation, corporate farming, and farms owned by international interests. I want the people that own our farms to live, work, and pray in our community, not in some other country.

We need to institute sensible tax policies that encourage family farms, lessen misguided environmental regulations that don’t protect the environment but only hurt ag producers, open markets to our ag products, and create incentives for young people to enter the industry.

Our state’s farmers and ranchers feed the world, but only if we let them.

Protecting the Dignity of Every Individual

Human life is sacred, and the dignity of the human being is the foundation of a moral vision for our communities.

Part of my job as a public servant is to assure those who cannot protect and care for themselves are protected and cared for. And that includes the most vulnerable, the unborn.

I am pro-life and I truly believe that life begins at conception. Every one of us is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – including those not yet born. 

I understand that many Oregonians do not share my view. But what the majority of Oregonians do understand is that we have the most extreme abortion laws in the country - a woman can have an abortion at any time during pregnancy, for any reason, up until the moment of birth. Most people find this unacceptable, and believe that there should be limits on abortion access to protect the rights of the unborn child.

I believe our abortion laws should match the moral conscience of our society. I will fight for legislation that promotes a culture of life, encourages adoption, and supports moms. And I will support laws that limit abortion in a way the majority of Oregonians can accept.

Securing Our Elections

In our Republic, it is vital that the public have faith in a free and fair election system. To put it bluntly, the integrity of our elections must be above reproach. Uncertainty and policies that open the door to voter fraud seem are unacceptable.

We need to secure our elections by requiring voters to prove their identities, conducting robust post-election audits to ensure accurate counts, and prohibit such activities as ballot harvesting.

Our nation is built on the trust we have in our election infrastructure, and I will fight to ensure we have safe, secure elections.

Supporting Our Police and Upholding the Law

Our communities expect law and order. They demand that our streets be safe and our parks be clean and accessible. And if a crime is committed, we expect justice to prevail for both the victim and the perpetrator.

Yet we have seen a severe breakdown in victims rights. Police forces have been defunded or underfunded, and too often crimes go unpunished. This has been especially apparent in Portland - we all watched with horror as looters ran wild and small, family businesses were going up in flames with no repercussions or punishments for the thugs who attacked our cities.

Sadly, we are now seeing the crime that we used to just read about up in Portland come to our own streets. 

We must support and adequately fund our first responders. We must demand from our state and local politicians that the rights of victims are considered in all cases.

I promise to always defend the rights of victims and to support law enforcement.

Protecting the 2nd Amendment

With the lawlessness we continue to see in our streets it should come as no surprise that there are more gun owners today than at any point in our history. We, as individuals, have the Constitutional right to defend our lives, our families, and our property by bearing arms when need be.

I’m an NRA Lifetime Member and a hunter.  My wife and I both have our concealed handgun licenses.  But hunting and self-protection are not the reason we have the Second Amendment.  Our country was born from those who chose to bear arms against tyranny, and that right has been enshrined in our nation’s DNA ever since. I believe that the right to own and bear arms should not be infringed under any circumstances and I will fight to protect the Second Amendment.

Government Overreach

Remember ‘two-weeks to stop the spread’?  Well, two weeks became two years of a Governor-mandated State of Emergency in Oregon.  Our Governor used emergency powers to shut down schools, shut down businesses and eliminate trials by jury.  She closed our Churches while keeping liquor stores and pot shops open as ‘essential businesses’.  She mandated masks for our kids, and forced vaccines on many workers.  And the data is clear that none of this made us any healthier or safer, but it has caused irreparable harm.

There is no excuse for our Governor to be granted two years of emergency power, overriding laws established by our elected representatives.  Our legislature must act to make sure this can never happen again. Keep our schools open, let our kids be kids, and keep vaccination an individual choice.